Battle of Waymere
The Battle of Waymere was a major battle in the Om campaign. Summary The Battle of Waymere was fought on the 20th of Twins, 465 in New Gildorn. It resulted in the capture of Waymere, the capital of New Gildorn, the capture or destruction of much of the Gildornian Naval Ships in stationed there, the invasion of Arcadia and Tyrus by the Kythonian Imperium and the death of Duke Marcus Cornelius Agrippa, the Governor-General of Waymere. Background In the summer of 465 tensions between Gildorn and Orlesea began to rise. A border skirmish on Norcium threatened to escalate into a war that would spill over to the two nations’ colonies on Elira. Historians debate the first blow struck in the New World as the war started, some claiming that it was the Battle of Socortia where the Gildornian Navy attacked Orlesean ships that were backing the pirate organization The Brotherhood of the Coast in service to their alliance with Queen Aziza of Socortia. Others state that it was the Orleseans who improperly struck before war was officially declared by attacking Gildorinian ships fighting the Brotherhood at the Battle of Dead Man’s Cove. Regardless of the start, but the Autumn of 465 the war was well and truly begun and Duke Marcus Cornelius Agrippa, the Governor-General of New Gildorn, had declared marshal law and mustered all available troops to prepare to march on Provonce, the Orlesean colony on Elira. However, Agrippa had made a fatal error, he had trusted the advise and council of an Orlesean “defector” named Felix Lapubelle, who convinced the duke he had turned his back on his home country. Lapubelle was able to fuel the Duke’s dislike for the Kirathi elves and get him to order troops into a costly war in the Kirathi Forest while also urging him to split his naval resources between securing Socortia and sailing the rest into a trap at the Battle of Dead Man’s Cove. Pre-Battle Duke Marcus Cornelius Agrippa had ordered a grand parade for the mustered Gildornian troops to thank them for the sacrifices and fighting ahead, and had scheduled as a grand finale the execution of four elven leaders and a handful of Gildornians whom he claimed (controversially) had betrayed the crown. By sheer coincidence, the mercenary/adventuring band called the Fate Fighters had arranged to save the condemned from the hangman’s noose, and had planned and operation to attack the execution and escape from the city. Unbeknownst to the Fate Fighters however, the Orlesans, together with the Brotherhood of the Coast and the minotaurs of the Kythonian Imperium, had planned their attack for that very moment as well, knowing that the troops would be caught off guard and out of position to defend the city. The Battle Fighting in the Harbor At midday on the 20th of Twins, the combined Orlesean/Brotherhood/Kythonian fleet sailed into the harbor and attacked Arcadia and Tyris as well as Waymere. The Gnomish Confederation Fleet hastily scrambled to attempt to defend themselves, but met with its own problems quite quickly as two of the ships, the Battleships Nautical Prototype XIV and Quite Impressive collided as they left port, both suffering extensive damage immediately. The remaining gnomish fleet consisting of the frigates Explosive and Federation and the submarines Sharkish and Fishlike, attempted to fight a delaying tactic, requesting help from the Gildornian Navy immediately. Unfortunately for the gnomes, that help was unlikely to come. Most of the Gildornian Navy was either away defending Socortia or lost at the Battle of Dead Man’s Cove. The harbor was lightly defended with Three Ships of the line (two of which were still damaged from the Battle of Socortia), a single Frigate (also still damaged), two transports and a brig to defend the port. The Orleseans sent fire ships into the harbor to destroy the vessels in port and followed up with conventional ship to ship battle methods. The naval portion of the battle was over fairly quickly with the Gildornian ships Defender and Formidable destroyed, and the Dreadnaught, the Imperial, the Nimble and the Unicorn all captured. The gnomish fleet too fell quickly, and only the Gildornian brig Echo was known to have escaped the battle intact. The Orleseans, pirates and minotaurs began landing troops at Portside, and they streamed into the city. Opal of the Fate Fighters, a powerful druid who had shapeshifted into an eagle, soon began to use magic to call down lightning and flame upon the port, destroying the landing docks which slowed the landing of more troops and damaged some of the ships. Attack at Paradise Square Many of the Orleseans, pirates and minotaurs that landed at Portside immediately marched to Paradise Square, where the executions were taking place and many soldiers and civilians were gathered. Additionally a large number of pirates had smuggled themselves into the city before the invasion and hidden near Paradise Square. When the invasion began they immediately attacked, taking special care to slay any noblemen and wealthy attendees of the execution in order to limit the leadership of the Gildornians. As the attack began, Duke Agrippa ordered his elite bodyguards to execute the elvish prisoners but the Fate Fighters were able to prevent the deaths of two of the elves, Merith an Memnon. Agrippa quickly moved to began rallying his troops, but he was promptly stabbed to death by Felix Lapubelle, leaving Waymere without leadership in the battle to come. With the elves secured, the Fate Fighters turned their attention to attempting to stem the tide of Orleseans and minotaurs streaming into the square to give civilians time to flee. Among the condemned Gildornian officers was Captain Wynona Falco, who immediately took command of the Gildornian soldiers in Paradise Square and began forming a line while the Fate Fighters split their attention between getting as many citizens out of the square as possible and using their magic and blades to put up as much resistance as possible to the attackers. The initial resistance seemed promising as a quartet of manticores ridden by Orlesean knights were swiftly laid low, in large part by Opal. Additionally Fynnhannar was able to kill the minotaur prince Neros and his vanguard of minotaur warriors in a salvo of fiery blasts. Eventually the sheer numbers of attackers overwhelmed the Gildornians and they were forced to fall back to Southgate. Attack on the Gnomish Quarter The Gnomes in Waymere promptly rallied in the Gnomish Quarter under Ambassador Filo Grimblebibb. Gathering the gnomish soldiers and citizen militia they fought a delaying tactic against the Orlesean and minotaur forces. As with Paradise Square, however, the sheer numbers soon overwhelmed the gnomish defenders. Grimblebibb gave the order for the engineers to detonate the black powder that had long been laid in strategic areas of the Gnomish Quarter and a retreat. The explosions were devastating, blasting apart much of the area, and Grimblebibb had hoped that it would kill or injure a large amount of the attackers as well. Grimblebibb ordered a retreat to Southgate in the hopes to lead his surviving troops out of the city. Skirmish at Southgate Most of the citizens of the city streamed towards Southgate, which Jasper Conroy and Fernith of the Fate Fighters had convinced Sergeant Major Lovell to open at the beginning of the battle to allow citizens to escape since the attack was coming from the sea rather than land. Captain Wynona Falco and Captain Hunter Brynan had been fighting other parts of the city but ordered a retreat to Southgate. Their intent was to hold the gate open as long as possible before closing and sabotaging it to prevent the enemy from giving chance and attacking non-combatants. Falco had managed to cobble together a company of 200 men, mostly of the Gildornian 2nd Colonial Regulars, and Brynan led half that number in city guardsmen. The Orleseans, pirates and minotaurs swarmed through the city, burning, killing and plundering all they came across, eventually reaching Southgate as well with a force of 500 minotaurs under Quintarian Jekk, 100 pirates under Razz “the Razor” and 500 Orlesean regulars under Major Jacques Gauloise. Falco ordered the gate sealed and sabotaged and stood ready to attempt to by as much time for the refugees to get away from the city as possible, knowing that the attacking forces did not have cavalry and would not be foolish enough to range into enemy territory on foot with dusk approaching. The Orleseans led the charge, clashing with Falco and Brynan’s forces and suffering heavy casualties at first. However Razz “the Razor’s” company of pirates emerged from the side street and cut into Brynan’s unit as they were preparing a volley on Jekk’s minotaurs. Brynan's unit was promptly flanked and slaughtered. Outnumbered and surrounded Falco’s unit rapidly crumbled and she ordered a retreat to Praetor’s Block where she had a report of another unit of Gildornian soldiers holding out. Before the Orleseans, pirates and minotaurs were able to secure the square, however, Ambassador Grimblebibb’s units arrived on the scene. The ambassador gave the order to try to fight their way to the gate and promptly engaged. The gnomes surprised the Orleseans out of position and unleashed a volley of experimental black powder weapons called “rifles” in a massive volley. The attack cut down a large swath of Orleseans and managed to cause the rest of the unit to withdraw in disarray. At the same time the Sons and Daughters of Tanos, 50 strong and led by Mordecai the Mighty, attacked from the other direction slamming into the surprised minotaurs. While the gnomish citizen militia under the command of Jog Pogglepep charged to melee distance to engage Grimblebibb soldiers prepared another volley. The pirates and minotaurs soon recovered from the surprise of the attacks, however, and coupled with the malfunction of most of the gnomish black powder weapons, the lack of numbers soon turned against Waymere’s defenders. The gnomes and Sons and Daughters of Tanos fought bravely to the last, but were slaughtered by the invaders. Jekk opted to force Southgate open to attempt to pursue the Gildornian refugees, but was immediately ambushed by a group of elven rangers from the Dralthanor Tribe outside the city. The leader of the 100 elves, Abyalynn, had encountered the fleeing refugees and had been convinced by the Fate Fighters to attempt to help cover the escape of the non-combatants. The elves delivered volley after volley of arrows to the minotaurs but the beasts soon charged to close the distance and began inflicting heavy casualties. Abyalynn, not willing to spend any more elven lives, retreated into the woods and the minotaurs did not pursue. With dusk approaching, however, they also did not give chase to the caravan, allowing well over three thousand Gildornian refugees to escape. Aftermath Waymere fell within a day. While thousands of refugees managed to escape the city, due in no small part to the Fate Fighters and the sacrifices of those who stood and fought at Southgate, tens of thousands of civilians were still trapped in the city and under. The Orleseans claimed control of the entire city, with the exception of Praetor’s Block, where a small pocket of resistance managed to block off all approaches and fortify the area. Those holdouts were in a difficult situation, however. The only landward approach to the area led to the rest of the city, which was occupied, and the Orleseans, pirates and Kythonians had full control of the harbor. For their part the Orleseans confiscated any horses that could be found in the city and began sending out slaving parties and raiders, one of which did attack a column of refugees heading to Midway Inn, but who were all slain by some of the Fate Fighters, who were accompanying the caravan. Repairs on the docks were initiated, but the damage dealt was severe and would take some time, leaving the occupiers to use rowboats to ferry goods and troops back and forth. Category:Om Category:Battles